A wide, accepting universe.

Lately when I'm walking around campus, I like to look at other people and think, "We're the same." I know we're not the same exactly, but stripped of context, our experiences will be strikingly similar: we've all failed, made mistakes, had successes, enjoyed moments of sheer bliss. Maybe that guy's greatest success has been just getting out of bed on this day. Maybe he woke up and thought, "Not another day. I can't do this," but got up anyway. And maybe that other guy's greatest success is that he just finished a triathlon this morning, and totally rocked it. Either way, I want to pat them both on the back and say, "Good for you!" My greatest success has been having babies. Stretch that all out on the scale of human experience and they will be same-sized blips on the graph.

Thinking we're all the same helps yank me out of the world in my head, pulls me from that place where my problems seem insurmountable and my joys must be bigger than the world because they're happening to me. God, how exhausting. How heavy.

Instead I look around at all these people, who look different and talk differently and are different ages and come from different backgrounds, and think, I'm no different than you. You've been here before. Maybe you are there right now. And suddenly my life feels exactly as large and as small as it should be, and I look at these unfamiliar faces and feel such an incredible warmth toward them. I want to grab them and say, "Isn't it great how we're sharing this experience?"

How comforting this is, to walk in the world and suddenly realize that you belong to it -- and not the other way around. And that there are millions of people in the world who are just the same, resting in the arms of a wide, accepting universe. Resting even if they're thrashing against it because on a grand enough scale, from a far enough perspective, even the most dramatic movements will be imperceptible. We're all still in this place, and even time doesn't matter.